Richard Edmonds
From a young age I have always enjoyed entertaining people. My sister Claire was the real star in the family though reaching the All England Tap Finals. Not quite as dedicated as my sister I was still one of the few kids to actually enjoy doing the school play, often taking the lead where I could! I enjoyed performing but didn’t see it as a career until Liam and I started ‘Faces of Disco’.
I enjoyed drama but preferred sport. I played Rugby, Cricket, Golf and Football, but it was in Athletics that I found my talent most suited. I loved watching videos of the great middle distance runners of all time including my all time hero Seb Coe. Throughout my teens I focused on athletics and dreamed of representing Great Britain at the highest level. I looked after myself, trained hard and was very dedicated. My Mum and Dad were amazing, driving me all over the country pursuing my dreams. However this left little room for extra curricular activities such as performing arts. I did fancy quite a few of the girls in the drama class though so thought it would be worth having a go at! I auditioned for the Christmas play and found, to my surprise, I got a main part. I also found to my surprise I actually quite enjoyed it! I appeared in all the school shows from then on until I went to Loughborough University where I carried on with the stage-society playing Danny Zuko in Grease. However it was with Faces of Disco that I really found my entertaining feet!
My first day street-entertaining with Liam was in Coventry. I don’t remember being too scared but Liam said I looked like a ghost! 8 weeks and 500 shows later I had completed the most memorable yet hardest summer of my life. We were hit by milkshakes in Gloucester, had to put up with stink bombs in Liverpool, even being targeted by overhead seagulls in Bournemouth who left something horrible on the masks-eww! Still the show must go on as they say and throughout any problems we encountered we found a way of getting over them. Liam and I were on a roll and dreamed of taking the show as far as we could go. We were spotted busking on the streets in Portsmouth and asked to compete in the Search for a Star competition on Southsea Pier, where we went on to win the grand prize of £1000. It wasn’t easy though, after doing 10 shows in the street the same day in Portsmouth we were still making masks using a petrol generator and jigsaw 30minutes until we were on! This was the first show we had done together on a stage and I was massively nervous! I remember rehearsing on the Pier before we went on, putting together a show, with Fishermen staring at these two lads standing next to a Bedford rascal camper van in white 1970’s suits!
Since 2007 Liam and I haven’t really performed together at all as our lives have took separate paths in different businesses. I still like to street perform at the weekends, but sadly due to work commitments Liam can’t, and it’s not the same without your best mate there. Still I love to entertain, so even the release of performing on a cold street on a Saturday is good enough for me! We decided to enter Britain’s Got Talent and give it one last shot we had no idea it would bring us back together as best mates and open up so many opportunities
